FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Reasons Why the Ongoing India-Pakistan Fracas May Not Get Any Worse

Feb. 27, 2019 (EIRNS)—This week’s conflict between India and Pakistan over a suicide bomb attack on India’s paramilitary force, killing 40 personnel on Feb. 14 in Pulwama, in the Indian-Part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and carried out by a terrorist group based in Pakistan, resulted in the Indian Air Force making a deep foray inside Pakistan to bomb the terrorist group’s training ground and the subsequent retaliation by the Pakistani Air Force 24 hours later, crossing into the Indian air space with the intent to cause damage. How many lives were lost following the Indian Air Force’s bombing of the terrorist training camp is not known, but reports indicate that both the countries have lost one of their fighter planes and an Indian pilot has been captured by the Pakistani security officials.

These developments have revived a great deal of tension between these two old adversaries. However, there are reasons to believe that things may not get any worse. To begin with, both China and Russia, two major neighbors of India and Pakistan, have urged both the parties to exercise constraint. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has spoken to both the Indian and Pakistan foreign ministers and has urged the Pakistani foreign minister to take “meaningful action” against terrorist groups operating on Pakistan soil.

In addition, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), was in Pakistan, India and China last week. Although Saudi Arabia is reported to be continuing to fund the Sunni-based terrorists based inside Pakistan, MBS has signed very large investment deals in Pakistan, India and China. If, indeed, Saudi Arabia, as indicated by MBS, wants to broaden its economic relations with India and Pakistan, it will get very active in preventing further conflagration between the two. It is widely accepted that Pakistan cannot go to war with any country without receiving the green signal from the Saudis.